SVU is amping up the horror factor and I LOVE it. In all seriousness though, you can only come up with so many 'PG-enough' storylines before those stories start to feel recycled over and over. Not to mention, the people who grew up watching this show are all well into adulthood now and can handle more mature, realistic (not sure that this episode specifically is super realistic, I just mean in general.) content. This episode had my jaw dropped - it went places I wasn't expecting SVU to go to and it was really refreshing to actually be shocked by something on a show that's meant to be disturbing.
I would say this is up there with the William Lewis storyline - just on a much smaller scale and contained in one episode. Not comparing the stories themselves, but the impact that they have and how memorable they are. 10/10 for sure.